Moral education and ethical reflection are always dependent on the content of the internalized norms, principles and values of the individual. As we demonstrate, this also means that there is no instance of feeling, emotion, spontaneity, or care that can be independent of norms, rules, and values outside human discourse. In light of this, Noddings’ theory of the ethic of care is a contentious theory of child education, as it is linked with the presupposition that we can turn a blind (...) eye to the symbolic field, to the network of rules/principles and their values, when we educate. Education that is derived only from caring, without being derived from reflection on education’s specific values, can lead to education that supports, for instance, racist ideology and racist education. This is not, of course, something that the ethic of care would advocate; however, as an educational theory, it is flawed in that, due to the rejection of reflection through principles in general, it fails to provide the educator with a conceptual apparatus through which he/she could analyze and reflect upon—could understand—what he/she is doing with regard to the norms of his/her culture. Society and educators cannot tacitly allow or be benevolent toward such fundamental mistakes in moral education. (shrink)